


I Think of this Name as Buried

by exmanhater



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Podfic Available, Post-Canon, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater
Summary: The Valkyrie survives, and finds her purpose.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes liberties with the Valkyrie's fate in the movie, but I'm assuming we're all on board for that. Title adapted from the Handmaid's Tale. Enormous thanks to Jedusaur for beta-ing at the last minute after I wrote this in about an hour!

Her mouth tastes of nothing but dirt when she wakes up. This is not unusual, nor is the ache in her bones, but the woman she sees standing over her as she blinks her eyes open to the night sky is a stranger.

She twists, diving for the knife in her boot, but the woman clucks her tongue and raises her hands as if she isn't a threat. She knows there is no one out in the wastes who isn't a threat, so she continues her grab for the knife, bringing it up in front of her body, and struggles to sit up.

"That won't help your back. You need rest, and I'm not what you have to fear," the woman says, kneeling down and offering a bag of what turns out to be water. She takes a tentative sip, not willing to swallow much before she knows more.

"Where am I?" she asks, giving in to the need to lie back down. She keeps the knife close to her chest.

The woman runs a leathery hand over her ink-stained arm, the words there stretched and twisted with age. "You're a short way from the pass to the Citadel, and the war boys and Joe are gone. I don't know if your folk made it through, but three days ago there was a huge explosion at the pass. I've not seen any living thing since then except for you."

"My people," she says, and struggles to move her legs. "They made it through, if I know anything about who Furiosa has become. But they'll need me."

The woman chuckles, and the sound is foreign and strange. "Furiosa is everything you might imagine," is the woman's reply. "I suspect those girls will need us both. Rest up."

The woman's hair is white and her eyes are deep, and they remind of her of her mothers, though she resists the urge to let herself trust because of it. She swallows another sip of water at the woman's urging, and then she knows no more.

+++

She doesn't ask the woman her name. Names aren't much use when there are only two people around, and she's not had much use for her own in years. She's been the youngest of the women for a long time. She responds to "girl," and "child," spoken with warmth and fondness, like she has since she was an actual child, because she knows it gives her mothers comfort to believe another generation might survive beyond their own lives. They all knew it was a lie, but lies were all they had.

Now she wonders if she is the only one left. To whom can she pass on her mothers' wisdom and hope, if the young girls Furiosa freed didn't survive?

When she rests enough that when she wakes she can stay conscious for longer than an hour, the woman says to call her Miss Giddy, and she nods in reply.

"How did you survive?" she asks, on the third morning.

"I'm good at it," Miss Giddy replies. There's a silence for a while as they eat the last of the dried food Miss Giddy had with her, and then Miss Giddy speaks again. "He left me when he ran off after you, left one little war boy half dead and hungering for a full death to keep me in my place. I stole his gun and I shot him. I drove the car up here, following the tracks, and I found hundreds of dead folk, and you, lying under some of the dead and not far away from joining them."

She doesn't reply, but she feels like maybe she can trust her instincts and let down her guard a little. Her mothers would claim this woman as one of their own, she is sure of that.

"He kept me around for knowledge, you know," Miss Giddy says. "Never thought about the risk of me sharing that knowledge with people other than him. That's his downfall, not thinking others had their own brains. Your Furiosa will have taught him that by now, I reckon."

"We have to get to the Citadel," she says, the urgency of her first waking thought returning at the remembrance of Furiosa. She's wasted enough time as it is. "My bike – did my bike make it?"

Miss Giddy helps her stand, and they walk slowly away from the rock against which they've been camped. "I haven't seen any bikes but the war boys', but we can go check. We'll not make it over the mountains with the car I have now that the pass is closed."

+++

The bike is miraculously intact. She stands over it, feeling again the sting of pain she felt as she watched one of her mothers die. She couldn't save her. She could barely save herself. Her vision swims and she relives it, falling under the hood, barely escaping the crush of the wheels. She didn't even nick the old tyrant with a bullet to make all the loss worth it.

Miss Giddy's hand on her elbow draws her back to the present. "Can you carry us both on that thing?" she asks.

"I can," she replies, and when Miss Giddy wraps thin arms around her waist as they set off, she blinks away tears and vows to make her mothers proud, both the one she couldn't save and the ones who might yet live.

The mountain pass is a graveyard of cars and war boys and rocks. The people who live up in the mountains are there, watching from their bikes up on the high peaks, but they don't seem to notice the women finding their own path up the rocky hillside. She knows they're only pretending not to see them, and she respects their choice by staying as out of sight as she can. It's slow going, and they have to stop often to clear more of a path. The bike sputters and roars its way up, and then descends slowly. She watches each bend in the stretch of ground ahead of them carefully, only going a third of her usual speed. It won't do to fail now, not when they're so close.

Miss Giddy claps thin hands in glee when they hit the bottom of the other side, smacking a kiss to her cheek, lips wrinkled and thin. It's surprisingly comforting. She pats Miss Giddy's hands, now back around her waist, and they ride on.

+++

It's the little scared girl, Cheedo, who greets them at a lookout post down near the edge of the Citadel. Not so scared any more, she thinks, watching the girl's hard but still bright eyes. They light up at the sight of her companion.

"Miss Giddy!" the girl yells, and hurls herself out of her hiding place to grab the old woman in a vicious hug.

"And the Valkyrie," Cheedo adds, when she releases Miss Giddy and turns toward her. "It's a miracle and the Dag will no doubt say it's because of her prayers, but whatever the reason, Furiosa'll be glad to see you."

"She's alive, then?" she asks. It's almost too much to be this close to knowing, one way or the other.

"Of course she is!" Cheedo says. "But not everyone made it – only two of the mothers survived." Cheedo eyes her nervously, some of the old hesitation back in her anxious demeanor, as if she has to fear being beaten for bearing the bad news.

She closes her fist in against her chest and feels the ache of everything past, flaring with a sharp pain as Cheedo joins her in the gesture. She wonders if this is how her mothers felt about her, their only hope for the future along with the seeds the Keeper always carried. It's pain and hope all at once, and she thinks maybe it's only right that she take on that mantle now.

She stands tall and runs a hand down Cheedo's cheek, then takes Miss Giddy's hand in one of hers, and puts her other arm around Cheedo. She stands between them, a living bridge between the past and the future, and knows this is her place.

"Take me to Furiosa," she says, and they walk to the Citadel together.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Think of This Name as Buried [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10341303) by [theleanansidhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleanansidhe/pseuds/theleanansidhe)




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